Monday, September 11, 2006

The New Albion

The last few days have been crazy! I dismantled and moved the Arab Treadle Platen press out of the studio. I cut down my desk by 6 inches so that it would turn and sit next to the map chest to give more room. The bookshelves were emptied and removed and smaller items were stacked onto my desk.

The reason? My new Albion arrived this morning. It was delivered, assembled and set-up by the guys at AMR, who I recommend highly. More details to follow but I wanted to share some photos.

I feel I must warn readers of a sensitive disposition that the piston and platen have, at some time, been painted bright red. I was planning on repainting them but I have to say that it is growing on me and I think the colour will stay. I have christened it "Red".

The platen is 24 x 18 inches so I would expect to get a good impression up to a quarter of that size; 12 x 9 inches. I will have to see how much further I can push it but I cannot see myself engraving blocks much larger than that. "Red" was made in 1902. You can see a sequence of photographs of the assembly here: